Almost immediately, we are plunged into a hellstorm of grandiose proportions, as Smaug lays down an impressively methodical carpet-fire-breathing assault, laying waste to Laketown and forcing the inhabitants to flee, until taken out by iron-arrowed Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans).
The writing is never more than efficient but the setting remains perennial: the comfortable, carpeted, fire-lit Baker Street sitting room shared by Holmes and Watson, the paradoxically womblike world of a Victorian bachelor set above an anarchic underworld full of violence and immorality.
They are widely used in commercial products, such as furniture, carpets, fire-fighting foams, food-packing materials, and cooking utensils (Lau et al. 2007).
"I remember seven or eight years ago in this room a kid set the carpet on fire," he said.
I was 15 and had a weekend job as a silver service waitress at the Moat House in Harpenden, a handsome 18th-century home transformed into a hotel by acres of thick carpet and fire doors.
Emerald carpets of fire moss roll out in all directions.
As you run to the nearest office block looking for bins to save the carpets, a fire alarm starts howling.
The chemical is used in the manufacture of items such as Teflon® nonstick coating, Gore-Tex® water-repellent gear, microwave popcorn bags, carpet, and fire-fighting foam.
A conference room floor is carpeted in fire-engine red, a white staircase in orange.
